... God allows the wheat and the tares to grow up together, and ... the tares frequently get the start of the wheat and kill it ou...t. The only difference between the wheat and human beings is that the latter have intellect and ought to combine and pull out the tares, root and branch.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Alas, the penis is such a ridiculous petitioner. It is so unreliable, though everything depends on it--the world is balanced on it... like a ball on a seal's nose. It is so easily teased, insulted, betrayed, abandoned; yet it must pretend to be invulnerable, a weapon which confers magical powers upon its possessor; consequently this muscleless inchworm must try to swagger through temples and pull apart thighs like the hairiest Samson, the mightiest ram.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

He had first discovered a propensity for savagery in the acrid lavatories of a minor English public school where he used to press ...the heads of the new boys into the ceramic bowl and pull the flush upon them to drown their gurgling protests.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

...I am useless, one more girl who couldn't be sold. When I visit the family now, I wrap my American successes around me like a pr...ivate shawl. I am worthy of eating the food. From afar I can believe my family loves me fundamentally. They only say, "When fishing for treasures in the flood, be careful not to pull in girls," because that is what one says about daughters. But I watched such words come out of my own mother's and father's mouths; I looked at their ink drawing of poor people snagging their neighbors' flotage with long flood hooks and pushing the girl babies on down the river. And I had to get out of hating range. I read in an anthropology book that Chinese say, "Girls are necessary too"; I have never heard the Chinese I know make this concession. Perhaps it was a saying in another village.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me whe...n I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor--they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Unpleasant questions are being raised about Mother's Day. Is this day necessary? . . . Isn't it bad public policy? . . . No politi...cian with half his senses, which a majority of politicians have, is likely to vote for its abolition, however. As a class, mothers are tender and loving, but as a voting bloc they would not hesitate for an instant to pull the seat out from under any Congressman who suggests that Mother is not entitled to a box of chocolates each year in the middle of May.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

A child is nothing like a racing car. . . . Souping up babies doesn't work that way. The child is what she is. There is a certain ...irreducible if elusive core. Pushing, pulling, stretching, and shrinking will not really change it. There may be spectacular interim results. The baby may say the alphabet before she walks, master two-times or even ten-times table at three. In the long run, however, this forced precocity tends to be irrelevant. . . . Whatever gains there are become unimportant. The losses can be irrevocable.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Today, San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of incredible proportions. As acting mayor, I order an immediate state of mo...urning in our city. The city and county of San Francisco must and will pull itself together at this time. We will carry on as best as we possibly can.... I think we all have to share the same sense of shame and the same sense of outrage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »